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Sony to quintuple sales of the Walkman, add WMA support
comment: 0 | Thursday, September 15 (2005) 07:09AM | Posted by Austin Vaughan
According to an article at NYtimes.com, Sony has big plans for thier new line of audio players, including the NW-A1000 (6gb) and NW-A3000 (20gb, pictured).

"Sony has set an ambitious goal of selling 4.5 million of the new Walkmans worldwide in the fiscal year ending next March. That is more than five times the number of older versions of the Walkman it sold last fiscal year, but still a far cry from the 6.2 million iPods that Apple sold in the three months through June."


We've heard the same kind of lofty goals from the likes of Creative and Samsung, but Sony may have the muscle to pull it off. This should help as well:

"The new line of Walkmans will work smoothly with MP3 and Atrac, Sony says, and a software upgrade scheduled to be available in December will allow the machines to support Windows Media."


It's not clear yet if this includes any kind of WMA DRM support, or WMA10 DRM (Janus) which would make them compatible with music download services like Napster and Yahoo Music.

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Comments

watergrave

Comments: 287
Sep 15 (2005) 07:25AM  

i'll tell you how Sony can get that goal... (1) get rid of Sonic Stage.. or upgrade it... (2) play movies or at least pics, (3) OGG and FLAC, (4) CHeaper Price.. it's even more expensive than IPods!!




watergrave

Comments: 287
Sep 15 (2005) 07:32AM  

it does look good though.. IMO probably the sexiest 20 GB... it's just so damn expensive.... im an audiophile, (Go Cowon!) but i don't mind Sony bumping Apple out of their throne... get competettive with the price Sony!!!




eatcha

Comments: 37
Sep 15 (2005) 07:54AM  

I agree, with Watergrave about the looks. It is a really nice looking player. The way the screen integrates with the body is genius. And From what I see from the Chatbox, there is an alternative to sonicstage right now, unless I am misinterpreting the comments.




Robert Sinke

Comments: 1221
Sep 15 (2005) 07:55AM  

Sony is thinking of ditching SonicStage altogether, btw.




watergrave

Comments: 287
Sep 15 (2005) 08:04AM  

HAHAHA!!! Great news... it's good they realized the ditchin' that stupid Sonic Stage... How about their price... planning to dicth some dollars too??




watergrave

Comments: 287
Sep 15 (2005) 08:07AM  

another thing... an FM Radio, and LIne-in Recording... that's it i'm done.... it's drop dead gorgeous... It's also a big plus thet they're goin Janus as well... Wow, i can see a very tight competition...




Robert Sinke

Comments: 1221
Sep 15 (2005) 08:22AM  

the real life pictures made me very wary... it's pretty big and seems to attract fingerprints like crazy. I'll probably just buy a bar of soap instead, but who knows.




syadasti

Comments: 24
Sep 15 (2005) 08:52AM  

I would say its equally as adept at attracting fingerprints as the polished back of an iPod




Robert Sinke

Comments: 1221
Sep 15 (2005) 08:57AM  

yup... one of my biggest gripes with these stylish-looking DAPs... in the end, most of these things look like they've been out on a trip to the battlefield. Vixen all the way .




ralphb

Comments: 154
Sep 15 (2005) 09:32AM  

Well, if Sony are planning on making 4.5 million of the new Walkmans before next March, then they should be selling off the surplus stock pretty cheaply in the summer, don't you think?






sumguy_

Comments: 293
Sep 15 (2005) 01:44PM  

methinks HD5 was much better looking. It was smaller than an iPod, but a good bit. This one is larger than an iPod (in all directions).

If you look at the profile pics, it bulges... not a good look.

I was anticipating this player for a while, but I was dissapointed.

It does look like sony is making headway into more usable firmware/navigation and is working on software problems.

The firmware screenshots show and interesting menu system.




Fender13

Comments: 67
Sep 15 (2005) 02:43PM  

You have to give Sony some credit though, for this step forward with WMA. The single most complained-about feature with the Sony Network Walkmans is the fact that Sony is too stubborn to let go of their own stupid ATRAC format. How many people never bought the NW-HDX players for that reason? Well, that and the crappy sonicstage. But atleast this shows that Sony is willing to change the way they think a little bit and try to get out of the box. I think the player looks nice btw, but I would have to see some comparison pics to really get a feel for it.




Kovno

Comments: 110
Sep 15 (2005) 05:37PM  

I still think the NW-HD1 is their best-looking player.

They're implementing some good improvements, though.




haroldpark

Comments: 27
Sep 15 (2005) 08:41PM  

Sonicstage is dead as disco. The new program is called "Connect" and is supposed to represent a fresh start on the software side of things.




enCORe_XTG

Comments: 317
Sep 16 (2005) 12:00AM  

no more Attract3 player ?
now they learn ....




Steve

Comments: 1197
Sep 16 (2005) 04:18PM  

I don't think they're giving up on Attrac3 just yet. In the NW-HD5 manual it says that all the equalizer settings apply ONLY to Attrac3 and have no effect on MP3's. That includes the presets as well as the custom settings. Maybe I misunderstood the manual. I don't have an HD5 to see for sure. I HOPE they change this for the new players, but clearly they're partial to the Attrac3 and I don't think the new model will radically change things. We'll see, I just hope they don't intentionally cripple MP3's which seems to be the case with the HD5.






Haplo

Comments: 10
Sep 20 (2005) 10:47AM  

And what about MSC?
Why is that such a big problem for manufacturers to implement?




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